“It is because we are still a peasant country. Most of our intellectuals are first-generation intellectuals. They come mostly from peasant backgrounds.” - Tatiana Kudriavtseva, Russian translator of contemporary American masters, dies at 93

“As soon as we publish something unusually explicit, we immediately get letters complaining, ‘Why do you use such filthy language?’ ” she told the Associated Press in 1982. “It is because we are still a peasant country. Most of our intellectuals are first-generation intellectuals. They come mostly from peasant backgrounds.”

Tatiana Kudriavtseva, Russian translator of contemporary American masters, dies at 93

Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post - Tatiana Kudriavtseva, one of the foremost Russian translators of American literature, in 2002.

• 0
• Share to Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on LinkedIn
• Add to PersonalPost
• Share via Email
• Print Article
• More

By Adam Bernstein, Tuesday, October 15, 8:34 PM E-mail the writer

Tatiana Kudriavtseva, a pre­eminent Russian translator of English-language literature — who exposed Soviet-era bibliophiles to contemporary American masters such as William Styron and John Updike (minus the sex scenes) — and who waged a successful 18-year battle with the Communist Party’s cultural gatekeepers to publish Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” in Russian, died Sept. 29 in Moscow. She was 93.